Kasab: From petty thief in Pakistan to terror face in India

Mumbai, Nov 21: The metamorphosis of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab from petty thief in Pakistan to terror face in India is laced with various twists and turns. Kasab was hanged till death at Yerwada jail in Pune around 7.30 am on Wednesday, Nov 21. Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil confirmed the news on Wednesday morning.

Very few people know who exactly was Kasab? Specific details are hard to pin down. Indian officials originally portrayed him as a middle-class boy who spoke good English. According to media reports, he belonged to a poor family in Faridkot in the Punjab province of Pakistan and his father used to sell food.

Kasab is said to have received little education. Media reports say that he had spent his youth alternating between labouring and petty crime.

In an interview with Pakistani media, a resident of Faridkot identified Kasab as his son. He said that he had left home four years before the attacks.

"He had asked me for new clothes on Eid festival that I couldn't provide him. He got angry and left," Dawn newspaper quoted the man as saying.

Some sources said his father asked him to join Lashkar-e-Taiba so that he could use the money they gave him to run the family. When asked about this, Kasab's father told reporters, "I don't sell my sons."

Villagers of Okara claimed on camera that he was at their village six months before the Mumbai attack. They said that he asked his mother to bless him as he was going for Jihad and claimed that he demonstrated his wrestling skills to a few village boys that day.

Kasab, 21 at the time, was the only surviving member of the group that launched a bloody rampage across the Mumbai city, killing 166 people.

Only after several months, Pakistan admitted that he was one of their citizens.